Microfluidic devices and systems utilizing such devices employ small capillaries and/or microchannels and/or cuvettes associated or even integrated with a solid substrate to perform a variety of operations in analytical chemical and biochemical applications on a very small scale. The small dimensionality of these systems facilitates sample processing (such as sample transport, analyte enrichment, reaction rate, etc.) that uses less reagent volume and that takes up far less laboratory or industrial space. Microfluidic systems thus offer the potential for attractive gains in efficiency of operation, and, consequently, substantial economic advantages.
A variety of spectroscopic techniques can be employed in conjunction with microfluidic devices, including those utilizing infrared (IR) radiation, visible light, and/or ultraviolet (UV) radiation, such as light-scattering spectroscopy, for example. In research or industrial settings, microfluidic devices are typically employed in biochemical or cell-based assays that use spectroscopic detection systems to quantify labeled or unlabeled molecules of interest. Microfluidic devices generally employ networks of integrated microscale channels and reservoirs (with the use of which fluid samples materials are transported, mixed, separated and detected), and various optical systems that are embedded or externally arranged/coordinated with such networks for optical recognition, detection, quantification, as well as other manipulations of the fluidic samples.
There exists an unsatisfied need in such expansion of the assay menu capacity of a microfluidic photometric system that would manifest in the reduction of volume of a liquid sample (required for the photometric measurement) as well as improving the accuracy and precision of the photometric measurement itself. Point of care integrated blood analysis instruments and environmental monitoring instruments are but two examples of devices that would benefit from such expansion.
There also exists an unsatisfied need for a low per test cost (reusable, small volume) photometry system capable of performing a variety of biochemical assays (multiplexing) from a single sample at the point of care. The need of operable integration of such system with other complimentary analytical systems such as flow cytometry system to further simplify testing (by, for example, elimination of multiple instruments/samples), capture economies of scale and scope (to reduce the overall cost) and enable decision making (for example, to obtain comprehensive test data from a single sample) remains not addressed.